“I have been spending all my extracurricular time in the laboratory except 15 days during the Spring Festival.” said Ren Demin, a junior of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
In 2018, Ren received funding from Student Excellence Talent Initiative (SETI), a major project of HNUST. Supported by the project, the paper entitled Reactions of 2-Aza-21-carbaporphyrin with Aniline Derivatives was published online recently on Organic Chemistry Frontiers（IF:5.45）, an internationally recognized journal. As the first author, Ren had published her tenth paper on SCI.
In addition, she won awards in both provincial and school level contests, the school first-class scholarship for two consecutive years and a number of honorary titles.
She believed that university is a favorable platform for students to realize their dreams. Different people have different pursuits. And Ren chose to do scientific research while others enjoying the excitement and freshness of attending university, or being crazy about music and dance.
“She usually gets up at seven in the morning and doesn’t come back until ten at night. And once having no classes, she would go to the laboratory.” said Zhu Mindan, her roommate. In Zhu’s opinion, Ren’s life is simple, just like a four-point line: laboratories, classrooms, canteens and the dormitory.
“After practicing, she has been quite familiar with the whole system of most experiments. As the backbone of the laboratory, she always exerts her ability to pick up ready-to-be-abandoned or even failed experiments by means of detailed observation of chemical reaction, and days of repeated experiments!” said Professor Li Xiaofang, Ren Demin’s mentor.
Experiments did not always run smoothly. Under great pressure from her insufficient competence and perplexity of unworkable experiments, Ren had more than once thought of giving it up, but she ultimately made it. At the point of bottleneck, Professor Li’s encouragement had come as a great beacon light of hope, which inspired her to insist. As time went by, Ren gradually developed a profound interest in experiments with staying in the laboratory as her habit. In her junior year, she firmly believed that she must seek further education to achieve her academic goal.
“Thank my university for providing me SETI, my school for the scientific and research platform, as well as my mentor for her guidance. I will repay my university by continuous effort. And HNUST has changed and enriched my life.” she observed.
“The honor confirmed my efforts. It’s totally worth it.” Persistence and diligence are the recipe of Ren’s success. “Success may not belong to the gifted, but must belong to the persevering.” Ren concluded.
(Translated by Shu Zizhao, Chen Meijun)
